#ILLibrary15 Illinois Library Association conference panel on Diversity

In October 2015, I was moderated a panel of authors and illustrators of diverse books at the Illinois Library Association meeting in Peoria, Il.

B A Binns, Miranda Paul, Chris Raschka, Laura Park

This well attended panel presentation took place in a double room at the Peoria Civic Center on October 23, 2015 in front of a packed crowd of public and school librarians eager to learn and panel members eager to do our job to help.

But looking back, I'm afraid we failed on one particular question. One librarian asked if any of us had ever been asked to change a character's race or ethnicity. We all gave quick, and technically correct answers: No, nothing like that had never happened to any us. Then we went on to the next audience question.

It was only after the presentation ended that I realized the answer was too quick and too literal. No, none of my editors has ever asked me to change a character's race. But they have done other, sometimes more sinister things.

Before I was published I had someone explain that my black male character did not talk like a real black man. That person gave me a list of books featuring black characters to read as examples of how African-American males talk, books written by white authors that featured stereotypical black characters. My brother and I had a laugh when I told the man I used as a model that he did not talk like a black man. I had one editor who looked at my first published novel, Pull, claim the heroine was too smart. I still get the "I just can't feel this character" kinds of comments from editors looking over my books; something that I never hear from readers. And right now, one of the editors looking at my most recent manuscript said the dialog "needs a lot of work."

No, they didn't exactly ask for a change in the race of the character, but I do get comments that would never happen if the character were white. Like the suggestion that I was wrong having the mother of a boy recently released from juvenile detention feel ashamed because that kind of behaviour is normal in neighbourhoods like that. Or that it was unrealistic that a ghetto school would have a thriving music program.  When I mentioned that I never said the place was a "ghetto" just that the student body was predominantly black and latino, the response was to tell me that if it was not a ghetto area I needed to say that in so many words.

So no, I've never been asked to change a character's race in so many words.  I just get the push backs because of their race.

It's not just me. Some authors censor themselves first. I know one black author who writes white characters because that's the way she can get published. CCBC statistics show that many Asian authors do not create Asian characters. ( See the numbers on books by and about different races as compiled by the CCBC - the Cooperative Children's Book Center -   http://ccblogc.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-numbers-so-far.html) At the same time I have seem a middle grade book whose publishers decided to "shade in" (and that's a direct quote) one of the characters and call it diverse.

This is the real answer to the question.

Class on incorporating diversity in your writing

Authors, are you interesting in using more diversity on your writing?

Beginning August 31, I will be teaching the Adding The Spice Of Diversity to your writing class in conjunction with the RWA Online chapter.  

 

Course objectives:
1. Gain a better understanding about what is meant by diversity
2. Learn why diversity is important to writers, publishers, and especially readers
3. Learn about problem tropes and caricatures to avoid
4. Understand the importance of cultural research and provide  some new sources for research
5. Find new ideas for characters, settings, building tension, and conflict that can both spice up your plots and attract new readers
6. Help you build the confidence to use these new ideas

Take a look at  http://www.rwaonlinechapter.org/campus.htm for more information and to register.

This is a four week online course and the cost is only $15. 

Hope to see you in class! 

Westside authors

I have been asked by a couple of my fellow former Westside Books alum for information into my foray in self-publishing, and I have decided to answer here rather than individual emails.

My debut novel, Pull, was published by Westside in 2010. They have since ceased operations and I got the rights to the book back earlier this year. I set up my own publishing press, AllTheColorsOfLove, and re-issued a second edition. I have also published a set of short-stories, and am working on Being God, a Pull sequel. Not that this makes me any kind of expert, but at least now you have my curriculum vitae.

Here are the steps I went through. The order is not really significant. Each step may be done by the indie author or contracted out. I will note the steps I took myself.

1. Get the rights back. In writing, not just an email saying it's OK. I made sure I had a signed document.
2. Get a copy of your copyright document. That took some time, because at first it seemed ther original publisher had lost it. But with persistence, I got that from them as well.
3. Editing. Because this had been edited before publishing, I did not have to hire an editor. Evelyn Fazio did an excellent job with the original. She is now a freelance editor, and I highly recommend her to anyone in need of an editor.  But there were a few places where I had wanted to make changes. I used this as an opportunity. Not much, I think I changed maybe four pages (ten sentences) in total. But I did feel that was enough to call the new version the Second Edition.
4. Decide who you will use to print your book. I call them printers, even for the eBook, because I consider myself the Publisher. If I am self-publishing, they are the groups I use to assemble the product and distribute it. Different vendors have different format and cover requirements, so this should be done before you do those steps. I chose to have a paperback done by CreateSpace and an Amazon eBook. I also have a Smashwords edition.
5. Cover. Purchase the cover art from Westside OR contract with an artist to design a new cover OR do it yourself. Use the specifications from your printing vendor. Since I was using CreateSpace, I dealt with their requirements. After hearing no reply from Westside when I attempted to purchase rights to the cover, I tried to hire someone. One person was in-demand and backlogged for months. I had creative differences with the other. In the end, I decided to learn Photoshop, buy a new picture of my cover model, and do the new cover myself. It became another outlet for my creativity. My new cover is similar enough to the old that people won't be fooled into buying the same book twice, but it has my own twist (I never got the point of the high-tension wires) and I was able to include quotes from reviewers.  And I had a ball creating it. CreateSpace then made a version of the cover to fit Amazon Kindle requirements.
6. Purchase ISBN.  This also depends on your printing vendor. If you are going completely eBook, say Amazon or Smashords, I see no reason not to use their free ISBN. Createspace also had a free ISBN, but I decided I wanted to own my own for the physical book. I consider my own company, AllTheColorsOfLove as the publisher, and I want that noted everywhere, and that meant buying my own ISBN from Bowker. To me it was worth the money.
7. Format book. This too depends on who you use for printing, different companies will want differentt formats. Formatting for Kindle is different from formatting for Nook or iTunes or for paperback. I did chose to do the paperback formatting for CreateSpace myself. It is tedious, and the instructions were not completely right, but it was doable. I hired someone to do the formatting for other platforms, and I don't regret the money. But if you are detail oriented, each platform has instructions on their sites.
8. Final details.  You have to set a price, which was more difficult that I first thought, deciding on a price that will sell and at the same time give me a reasonable profit. Especially if you want to go to a bookstore or other distributor, they require discounts that you have to factor into your pricing. You will probably want an author page for your distributors, if you do not already have one. You will have to notify the parent company that you are the author, it was not automatic for me. Once they attach the book to your author page you can addional information to help market it. 
9. Oh yeah, marketing. Best of luck, I'm still working on that, setting up conference appearances and preparing to hire a publicist to see how/it that helps with future books.

A new job description

As of today I am more than an author.

I am a publisher.

Not exactly what I wanted to be.  But then, life is nothing if it is totally predictable.

My debut novel, PULL, a young adult novel geared toward attracting reluctant readers, was published in 2010 by Westside books.  Unfortunatly, Westside ceased publishing new books or reprinting existing books in 2011.  Because my book was not officially out of print, they retained rights. Because there was no promotion, sales plummeted. Even when people tried to order the book they were told none were available. I  know, because two booksellers and a school told me they had been unable to get books, and a second school told me the repeated trials they had to go through before finally getting  a supply for their students. 

Once the last copies were sold, and another school had to go without books, my agent was able to get my rights returned.  Great, I thought. I'll go the Indie route. I joined RWA's Self Publishing Forum so I could learn more about this and decide on my next steps. Only to discover I needed to move faster than I first intended.

Last week I was approached, first by a school, then by a distributor. They wanted to order and Westside sent them to me. I realized I needed to move fast or get replaced by a different selection.  That meant signing forms and making decisions much  more rapidly than normal for me.  And so, All The Colors Of Love was born, my own publishing company.  I looked at Amazon's Creatspace, and decided to use them as my printer/distributor. Even though I knew there would be more hassle involved, I chose to be my own publisher. I have a set of ISBN's and a Bowker account. I learned how to format documents for publication. I've signed legal papers and am in the process of establishing an account with a wholesaler.  I even bought my own copy of my cover-model (this was much more expensive that other stock photo shops, but in the end I paid because I just can't imagine anyone else as David) and learned how to use Photoshop to create a new cover.   I even kept the old motif of the hero being chained in by life, although I nixed the high-tension wires.

 

The new edition still needs some time to percolate through it's printers, but paperback, Kindle and Smashwords editions will be up shortly. And thoseclassrooms will have their books.

And somehow, I also found time to finish teaching an on-line writing class, get a new job, and keep on writing.  As I told my students in the Man-Talk class, women are excellent multi-taskers.